The Colossus of Leeds

Usually I expect us to blow everyone away at this level. Weren't confident tonight though. No, no. Now Beausejour's gone to the retail park in Wigan to play some football for 90 mins before popping next door to have a Pizza Hut, it's resulted in us being without a left winger. 

Hughton opted to shift one of the tika-taka-trio out there, some people said Fahey was wide left, some said Gomis, all I knows is that neither is carrying the ball and offering an outlet. That was the first point of concern.

Like one of my heroes in life, Lee the Baggie, I've always been a fan of wingers who collect the ball and take a gamble, get to the byline and whip a cross in. 

They stretch the game, they relieve pressure on your defence by moving the ball up field, they invite lunges and increase the chance of you getting a penalty. You know, that's why I defend Pennant, Stan, Julian Gray and De Ridder with every fibre of being, while the pigs look on and scoff, shoving truffles in their gobs in between praising McSheffrey.

The other point of concern was Zigic upfront as the one, in the 4-5-1 formation that in-Houghton-we-trust picked.

Before you condemn me as a balti pie-licking block elevener, spitting bits of crust into your hair when they ironically cheer Zigic for winning headers. Let me say, I 'aint like that.

I like the guy and wouldn't slag him off in the real world where we dwell, I just think - to borrow Paddy from Big Brother's catchphrase -  he's away with the fairies and he's not coming back.

If you were to look inside Zigic's mind during a game, you'd witness a scene very much like one of those black and white 1930's Disney cartoons where a skull-faced Mickey Mouse sails on a Steam Boat and wanks off a cow.

A surreal creepy vortex.

Has anyone ever heard Zigic speak?

He walks around the pitch stoned out of his face, with that perma-fixed grin smacked across his rubbery lips.

When he stepped up to take the penalty against Sporting Braga you knew he was gonna miss, who the hell decided to give Zigic the penalty? That's as responsible as A2B radio cars signing up Lee Hughes to work night shifts.

He strolls around often giving the ball away, conceding fouls with hilarious slow motion tackles, and can be anonymous for large periods of the game. But then again, he'll win you a match out of the blue.

And that's why I love Zigic. He's a total lunatic who's incompetent for 90% of the time, but he's our incompetent lunatic. And often that bumblin' and a'stumblin' brings about loads of goals, not just for himself either - the poor opposition defenders don't know how to handle him.

I'm sure that's why Curtis Davies keeps scoring, because defenders drift towards Zigic on set-pieces and end up becoming static with confusion.

And ol' Ziggy himself seems to have a knack of scoring in the big games.

He can't walk in East London ever again as he beasts West Ham every time he faces them, and he sent the Millwall fans into a destructive rage a few weeks ago with his match winning input. If ever he wants pie and mash or a stray dog, he's gonna have to go elsewhere.

Remember the last minute goals against United and Stoke last year? And who can forget that cup final header?

So.....we hadn't a left winger, and we had to rely on the haphazard nature of Zigic against Leeds tonight, predictions, like the Italian cruise captain, were out the window.

I d'aint go to Leeds because I'm one of these unemployed students that you hear about in the news, them unruly types throwing bricks at coppers in riots, them what need national service and that. So I didn't see it. But let's face it, if you're reading this, you're not doing so in the hope of gleaning an insightful match report. Also! Being a Championship game, there weren't streams, so I had to 'Tom Ross' it.

 

Verb: To Tom Ross it: Locking oneself in a darkened room and listening to BRMB's commentary which is a cacophony of screams and heart-stopping wailing. Similar sounds to that of a 14th century torture chamber

It's like how I imagine it were to be a blind man in the blitz. 

You can't see what's happening, but you hear the screams and the terror and you're powerless to escape.

 

I listened to that wireless of screams for 90 minutes. 

It shed 5 years off my life, but it transpired that my fears for the result were misplaced. After a 'meh' first half, Blues only went crazy and hit Leeds for four, FOUR, we won 1-4, meaning that we've now struck 17 goals in the last 4 games.

Zigic got.....all four goals. The 7 foot man whose head is in the clouds, literally and mentally, wrought havoc amongst the Leeds defence. A colossal performance from the colossus of Leeds.

All the bottle jobs around us once again slipped up, the driver of the blue machine clasped the gear stick and yanked it into 5th, the unstoppable entity powered into 4th spot with still a game in hand.

West Ham, Saints and Cardiff are motionless daisies before the blue bulldozer, awaiting a certain fate. They know it. You smell the polleny fear.

And with 2nd placed Southampton visiting Fortress St Andrews on Satdee, you'd be sipping tea with Zigic and the fairies in the garden of madness if you wrote our automatic chances off just yet. 

see the goals here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI-w3NAyGOg